Q&A;: Leighton Meester Has Not Read Your Blair and Seth Fan Fiction

It's a busy year for Leighton Meester. She's starring in her first Broadway play, Of Mice and Men, which just opened with James Franco and Chris O'Dowd. She has some new movies on the horizon. Oh, and she got hitched to Adam Brody in a big hush-hush wedding ceremony. You can see the newlyweds together in Meester's latest movie, Life Partners, which is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival today. She plays Sasha, an aspiring musician who's almost 30 but still acts 21. When her best friend, Paige (Gillian Jacobs), gets engaged to a doctor (Brody), Sasha starts to lose her 24/7 BFF — as well as her sh*t. Cosmopolitan.com spoke to Meester, who is fantastically funny in the movie, about not being able to cook for herself, backstage banjo-antics with Franco and company, feminism, and why she's not reading your Blair/Seth fan faction. (Sorry!)

How are you?

I'm good, how are you? Are you in New York?

I am.
So, it's cold. Why? I don't understand it. [Editor's note: New York City has suffered through freakish 30-degree weather AND SNOW this week.] I was sweating throwing the ball for the dog the other day in the park. And then I turn around and I'm like, "I have to wear a coat again." My dog doesn't wanna go outside.

He probably enjoyed the snow, at least?
Um, no. My very small dog is basically like her very own broom. She's a dachshund with long hair and she's really, really short. Her legs are probably two inches long, so every time she comes back I have to put her in warm water and warm her up because she's so cold. She's like, "I can hold my pee all winter."

I just watched Life Partners and I love how realistically it portrayed female friendship and growing up. Your character is almost 30 but she holds on to habits she had when she was 21. Do you have any habits from your early 20s, for better or worse?
Yes, definitely a lot for worse. I've just kind of gotten to understand what it's like to feed myself. I lived in New York for most of my 20s and you can pretty much order anything as if it were room service for delivery to your apartment. I was used to waking up in the morning and being like, "I'm gonna have some coffee and a newspaper and a bagel delivered, and I'm good!" Now I live in L.A. and that's not so easy. And now I'm back in New York and I'm like, "Maybe I shouldn't have given in to that desire to lay around and have food brought to me."

Sasha and Paige watch America's Next Top Model on their girls' nights. Do you have any TV shows that you like to watch with your girlfriends? And do you yell at the TV?
Does it sound sick that I like to watch the Investigation Discovery channel television shows with them? We don't really yell, but we make comments like, "Obviously, it's the wife! Duh! She was cheating!" It makes me sound like I'm a killer, but for some reason it appeals to me. I think it's because at the end of the show, justice is served. [We watch] that, and Chopped. Have you seen Chopped? It'll be on a marathon and then five hours later, you're like, "Where am I? I just spent so long watching people cook and now I'm starving." It's the best show. I pretend that I'm on Chopped when I'm in the kitchen cooking: "I've got 10 minutes, I gotta get it out." I sometimes will pause it and be like, "What would I do with lemon sour candy, pasta, and salmon?" I'm digging myself deeper into the dork hole.

This is your second movie with Adam Brody. Congrats on the marriage, by the way. Have you heard of any of the fan fiction that people have been writing about a Blair and Seth marriage?
No, what can you honestly say? [I haven't read] any fan fiction about my show.

There's a lot. One fan pointed out that Blair and Seth would work as a couple because they both have some Jewish background. And one person wrote 25 full chapters about their life together.
Oh, wow. I mean, whatever floats your boat. As long as you're not hurting anybody, have fun.

It just goes to show Gossip Girl and The OC had some major fanbases.
They were awesome. They're the best fans.

Do you think a Blair and Seth marriage could work in a fictional world?
Oh gosh, I have no idea. I just don't know. They're not real people. So that's that.

Congrats also on your Broadway show, Of Mice and Men. What goes on backstage with James Franco and Chris O'Dowd?
It's definitely not boring. Everyone plays music and is really supportive and warm and kind. But it's been a lot of work, so that's the majority of how our time is spent.

Is there any type of music that James or Chris or yourself like to play backstage to set a certain mood?
Well, all the guys — there are nine cast members, besides me — and everybody bring in their banjos, ukuleles, guitars. I'm up on the top floor, so I'm one floor above all the guys. It's all the men sort of dorming together, and they all have their grimy makeup and clothes and their glycerin sweat. They're playing ranch hands, so I would see them coming out of there with all this — did you know that there's actually makeup that makes your hands look dirtier? It's clean dirt, basically.

On a totally different note, you've told Nelly.com that Betty Friedan is your role model. Why is she your role model?
A lot of feminist writers, not just feminist writers but female writers in general, are inspiring to me. I'm a big fan of Joan Didion, Anaïs Nin, just female writers who have the sensitivity, the drive, and the consciousness to capture the female point of view. That along with the fact that her book [The Feminine Mystique] was groundbreaking at the time and it still catches a lot of people.

Do you remember when you first read The Feminine Mystique and the impact it had on you?
When I was like 18 or 19. There's something to be said for talking about feminism as it comes from within. It's a total topic of discussion with my friends, how, as you grow up, as you get to know yourself, as you start to have the consciousness to have self-respect, self-confidence, and really make your own decisions, it's undeniable and unavoidable that you will start to agree with the feminist point of view.

It sometimes seems funny to ask a woman if she's a feminist. It's like, "Well, yeah, I'm a woman and I respect myself."
I don't know if anyone would ever deny being a feminist. It certainly is made into something of a caricature these days. I think it's demonized for the sake of trivializing feminist beliefs. But I think being a feminist simply means you believe in equal rights, and I think if you ask anybody if they believe in equal rights, they'll say yes, man or woman. And if they don't — who the heck would say that?

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